Planning A Winter Wedding Timeline

One of the biggest challenges when planning your winter wedding timeline is having to consider the number of hours of daylight that you’ll have. Especially if you’ve chosen a location far in the north, where in the depth of winter the sun may only appear for a few short hours.

Ask anyone who’s been married and they’ll tell you the same thing. The wedding day that you’ve spent months planning will fly by so quickly. And once it’s over, it will be your wedding photographs that you turn to on your anniversary every year to remember how amazing it was. So it’s really important to consider how you want your photographs to look when you’re planning your wedding day timeline.

Good photography is all about light, and the best (and most flattering) light is natural sunlight. If you want to have your weddings pictures outside, taking in the beautiful scenery around you, you’re going to need some daylight for that. Whilst the most beautiful light is around one hour before the sunset, most photographers would be happy with any form of sunlight over darkness. Once it get’s dark, the only way to continue to take pictures is with a flash, which has a much harsher look to it.

With that in mind, you have two potential scenarios for your wedding day timeline:

Scenario 1: An Early Ceremony

If you don’t want to see each other before the ceremony, you’ll need to consider an early ceremony with at least 45 minutes afterwards to take your couple pictures whilst it is still light.

Scenario 2: A First Look

If your ceremony is in the evening, consider holding a “first look” before the ceremony. Not only is this a lovely and intimate way to see each other for the first time on your wedding day, but you’ll be able to have some pictures in the daylight.

If you’ve got your heart set on a beautiful night shot with sparklers, or if you’re really lucky the northern lights, then there’s no reason why you can sneak away from the celebrations later in the night to do that too.